Treasury chief: Need more powers

WASHINGTON - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner asked Congress on Tuesday for broad new powers to regulate nonbank financial companies like troubled insurer American International Group whose collapse could jeopardize the economy.

“AIG highlights broad failures of our financial system,�? Geithner told the House Financial Services Committee. “We must ensure that our country never faces this situation again.�?

At the same time, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke revealed that he had considered filing suit to keep AIG from paying millions in executive bonuses but that his legal advisers counseled him against it.

Geithner acknowledged that the current climate of anger, including the furor over those retention bonuses, will complicate any effort by the Obama administration to get more bailout money from Congress. “We recognize it will be extraordinarily difficult,�? he said.

The administration sought to use that rancor to build support for its financial overhaul proposals.

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Treasury chief: Need more powers

What’s that Lassie?? You say Lil’ Timmy fell in the well?!?! Oh, good girl Lassie, good girl, have some doggie treats and let the stupid son of a bitch STAY in the well!!

Here is ALL you need to know about giving MORE POWER to a dingbat that’s placed in charge of the U.S. Treasury and he can’t even do his OWN income tax return.

Senate panel approves Geithner for treasury post

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate Finance Committee has cleared the nomination of Timothy Geithner as treasury secretary despite unhappiness over his mistakes in paying his taxes. The committee approved the nomination on an 18-5 vote, sending it to the full Senate. President Barack Obama is hoping for quick approval so that the point man for the administration’s economic rescue effort can begin work.

The committee vote came a day after Geithner appeared before the panel to apologize for what he called “careless mistakes” in failing to pay $34,000 in taxes earlier in the decade, when he worked at the International Monetary Fund.

Geithner paid the back taxes plus interest for the years 2003 and 2004 after being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. But he did not pay taxes he owed for 2001 and 2002, even though he had made the same mistakes for those years, until shortly before he was nominated by Obama last November to be treasury secretary.

The nomination was expected to win approval by the full Senate, with many lawmakers saying that given the serious economic crisis facing the country, the new president deserved to have the services of a man of Geithner’s abilities and experience.

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Senate panel approves Geithner for treasury post

During the Bush administration there were many on the left/libber side of the aisle that called Pres. Bush’s efforts ‘the fleecing of America’. Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit to you that we have not yet begun to witness the fleecing of America, not in the manner we are about to see under the Obama administration!

Placing Tim Geithner at the head of the Treasury is like giving the fox a key to the hen house, as I said yesterday, akin to making Keith Richards the head of the DEA, nothing good can come of this. I don’t say that off the cuff. Geithner is a tax cheat, by ANY definition! He didn’t get arrested, he didn’t go to prison, he wasn’t even charged, but he is, by his own admission, a tax cheat. I wonder just how smart the guy really is too. He used a popular on-line tax program and he made serious errors and oversights. Is he the best person that Obama could find to run the Dept. of the Treasury?

Geithner has been the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York for the past six years and was a key participant in decisions made by the Bush administration to deal with the worst financial crisis to hit the country since the Great Depression.

Wait a minute!! Wasn’t the big slogan of Obama and Company *CHANGE*? If Geithner was ‘a key participant in decisions made by the Bush administration to deal with the worst financial crisis to hit the country since the Great Depression’, and given that the financial situation of this nation has gone from bad to worse, is Geithner the *CHANGE* the Treasury needs? Is the decision making ability of the Obama administration what this nation needs?

I think the answer to those questions is rather obvious to Conservatives. Of course Democrats, libbers, assorted leftists and supporters of Hamas and al-Qaeda won’t think so, but to any REAL, red-blooded American the answers are as plain as the nose on your face. Obama has made his 1st ‘most grievous’ error, and I am sure that this will NOT be the last. Hillary as Sec. of State, the closing of Guantanamo, hell folks, this is just the opening act!

AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for many of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.

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AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

This is the type of thing that MUST be stopped if this nation is ever to recover. I am not at all against a person being paid bonuses, even very large bonuses, but those bonuses must be earned. Earned by giving a stellar performance and by motivating those under your supervision to give an equally stellar performance.

If your business is failing, if it’s not performing at a profitable level, if it’s not making money for it’s owners and/or stock holders, WHY in the hell should anyone connected to the management OF that business get anything other than a motivational kick in the ass?

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largesse, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe “to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.

As an example of how bad I feel this type of thing is, and how far out of control the finance people of this nation are, I agree with Rep. Frank 100%. I will take this one step further than Rep. Frank did however. We should not only stop paying huge bonuses for non-performance, executive salaries need to be cut drastically for non-performance as well.

Nothing motivates more than money for a business executive. Take it away from him and see just how fast he/she gets back down to SERIOUS, well managed and profitable business.

I have long believed that the power of the dollar is mighty, and it can, or the LACK OF can, motivate the masses to produce more efficiently. Penalize the executives, put them in the *poor house* and lets see if business in this nation doesn’t do a swift 180° turnaround!